December 20, 2002
THE GREAT CHAIN:
-Review of Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Collected Speeches, By William F. Buckley, Jr. (Charles R. Kesler, Weekly Standard)At Yale he encountered not only leftist economics and irreligion - which he later excoriated in his first book, God and Man at Yale - butalso Willmoore Kendall, the young political scientist who became his mentor. Kendall was Nock's opposite in almost every respect: he was a kind of democrat, a student of Rousseau and of majoritarianism,who taught that every society is by necessity a closed society, defined by a consensus of opinion on right and wrong, noble and base, us and them. Even the most open society, averred Kendall, is in fact closed, because it has effectively made up its mind that openness is good. If it hasn't, then it won't remain an open society very long.Every society had an orthodoxy, according to Kendall, and societies could be judged by the quality or soundness of their ruling opinions. The standard by which to rank different societies was not abstract freedom but some civilized combination of virtue, utility, and tradition, concerning which Kendall was a little vague. Nonetheless, he was clear that democratic societies ultimately depended for their survival on virtuous majorities, prepared to defend their way of life. Not every majority in every land was sufficiently competent, of course, which was why democracy was a rare plant. Institutional safeguards, procedural guarantees, and rights talk might palliate but could not cure the problems of democracy. Liberals who believed otherwise were naive.
Nice bit here about how Nock and Kendall influenced a then young Mr. Buckley. Kendall's views seem pertinent to the discussion about whether Israel must remain essentially Jewish. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 20, 2002 8:09 AM
Buckley ranks with Elijah Muhammad as one of the worst religious bigots of our time.
Posted by: Harry at December 20, 2002 1:41 PMThat's idiotic.
Posted by: oj at December 20, 2002 4:40 PMAre you saying he isn't a religious bigot?
Posted by: Harry at December 20, 2002 6:38 PMYes, he's not a bigot and please don't dredge up the well worn youthful hijinks.
Posted by: oj at December 20, 2002 7:30 PMThat is indeed idiotic, Harry. The book reviewed here by Kesler is sustained in its power by a series of moving and eloquent appreciations (often obituaries) for a vast variety of men and women, most of whom disagreed with Buckley on almost everything. Rarely does one see such genuine human warmth and charity extended to ideological enemies as with William F. Buckley. Your charge of bigotry is a ugly slander.
Posted by: Paul Cella at December 20, 2002 10:21 PMI'm not aware of his youth, hijinks or otherwise.
I do know he got his start by allying with
some of the scummiest bigots of the '50s, was
a rather more subtle sort of bigot in the '60s,
the only period when I read much of his stuff,
and never repented -- in fact, remained devoted
to -- his early alliance.
I'll grant, he wasn't as obnoxious as his sister.
True. His sister and Brent Bozell were real pieces of work.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at December 21, 2002 9:31 AM"Scummiest bigots of the '50s"? They were Democrats. Who from the original masthead of National Review is a bigot?
Posted by: oj at December 21, 2002 9:53 AMBuckley's project in founding National Review was to reform conservatism and one of the ways in which he wished to reform it was to purge it of its traditional anti-semitism.
Posted by: David Cohen at December 21, 2002 2:21 PMYou jump to conclusions. Buckley was a
reactionary. A positive bigot, if you will. A
leading cheerleader for the Roman Catholic
bishops' conspiracy against American liberty.
Orrin doesn't believe in the conspiracy. It
existed, whether he believes it or not.
And I am older than Orrin, I saw the terror.
It wasn't terror on the level of Stalin or Hitler,
but it was terror nevertheless.
I believe in the conspiracy and I'm sorry it failed. Modernity requires reaction. As Flannery O'Connor put it: You have to push back as hard as the age that pushes against you.
Posted by: oj at December 21, 2002 5:06 PMYou'll never see this perhaps, Orrin, but that last was comment was a stroke of true genius: "I believe in the conspiracy and I'm sorry it failed." Brilliant!
Posted by: Paul Cella at December 24, 2002 11:33 PM